too
stiff for further tramping and would be the better for a rest; and Sloat
left him.

Heavens! how beautiful she was, with her sparkling eyes and radiant
color, glowing with the graceful exercise! He sat there on an old log,
watching the skaters as they flew by him, and striving to keep up an
impartial interest, or an appearance of it, for the other girls. But the
red sun was going down, and twilight was on them all of a sudden, and he
could see nothing but that face and form. He closed his eyes a moment to
shut out the too eager glare of the glowing disk taking its last fierce
peep at them over the western bluffs, and as he closed them the same
vision came back,--the picture that had haunted his every living,
dreaming moment since the beautiful August Sunday in the woodland lane
at Sablon. With undying love, with changeless passion, his life was
given over to the fair, slender maiden he had seen in all the glory of
the sunshine and the golden-rod, standing with uplifted head, with all
her soul shining in her beautiful eyes and thrilling in her voice. Both
worshipping and worshipped was Alice Renwick as she sang her hymn of
praise in unison with the swelling chorus that floated through the trees
from the little brown church upon the hill. From that day she was Queen
Alice in every thought, and he her loyal, faithful knight for weal or
woe.

Boom went the sunset gun far up on the parade above them. 'Twas
dinner-time, and the skaters were compelled to give up their pastime.
Armitage set his teeth at the entirely too devotional attitude of the
artilleryman as he slowly and lingeringly removed her skates, and turned
away in that utterly helpless frame of mind which will overtake the
strongest men on similar occasions. He had been sitting too long in the
cold, and was chilled through and stiff, and his wounded leg seemed
numb. Leaning heavily on his stout stick, he began slowly and painfully
the ascent to the railway, and chose for the purpose a winding path that
was far less steep, though considerably longer, than the sharp climb the
girls and their escorts made so light of. One after another the glowing
faces of the fair skaters appeared above the embankment, and their
gallants carefully convoyed them across the icy and slippery track to
the wooden platform beyond. Armitage, toiling slowly up his pathway,
heard their blithe laughter, and thought with no little bitterness that
it was a case of "out of sight out of mind"